This Isn't Real

Chapter One

Before time began, there was the Cube. We know not where it comes from, only that it holds the power to create worlds and fill them... with life. That is how our race was born. For a time, we lived in harmony. But like all great power, some wanted it for good, others for evil. And so began the war. A war that ravaged our planet until it was consumed by death, and the Cube... was lost to the far reaches of space. We scattered across the galaxy, hoping to find it, and rebuild our home. Searching every star, every world. And just when all hope seemed lost, message of a new discovery drew us to an unknown planet called... Earth.

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My feet beat against the ground as I ran as fast as I could after the thief that I had the unfortunate luck of knowing, and not even on a personal level. My heart was racing within my chest at the exertion I had not planned my body for in the entire eighteen years I have been alive. What I was chasing another human over wasn't even worth the trouble, but it somehow felt worse to simply act like I couldn't care about it.

"Joshua! Get back here!" I shouted breathlessly, hating how out of shape I sounded as much as I felt. How embarrassing..

"What's wrong, babe? You struggling to keep up?" There it was, that stupid boyish smirk he always liked to throw at me when he was clearly screwing around. He even had the audacity to raise my target up in the air as he aimed his smirk from over his shoulder in my direction. It was a stupidly cheap Autobot insignia necklace that I bought from some small business owner online. It was all I could afford at the time, but despite the fact it could break in a moments notice it had quickly become the one object I wore everywhere with me. For weeks Joshua has been trying his hand at snatching it from me, playfully yet annoyingly, but failed to succeed. At least until today when he just so happened to walk by my locker as I was putting it back on after gym class. It was the last class of the day too, and I just wanted to get home..

"Just give it back, Josh! You're being ridiculous!" Joshua Finch...this school's 'popular' boy. He wasn't even really popular by social standards, the girls in our grade just thought he was cute so they talked about him constantly. He hung around me more than anything, but I wouldn't go as far as to call us best friends by any means. The term I would prefer to use would be frenemies at best.

We ended up dashing out the front doors of the school at this point, and I supposed I could be grateful that I at least was brought closer to the parking lot so I could leave this hell hole as soon as I got my necklace back. I graduate soon alongside the rest of my class, obviously, and I couldn't be more thrilled with the idea to never have to return here. I definitely planned to move far away from this town, and everyone in it as soon as I throw my cap in the air.

"What's ridiculous is your lack of athleticism!" Joshua turned around to face me once he reached the bottom of the staircase in front of the school. "Catch!"

I was forced to watch in open eyed horror as he gripped the insignia part of the necklace in his hand, reeling his arm back before launching it through the air in my direction. I was still on the stairs unlike him, and I seemed to forget that glaring fact as I blindly rushed forward to catch the necklace.
Now like I said before...this cheap necklace was clearly not worth any of this trouble from the get-go. However that inevitably did not stop me from risking my neck by tripping down the remainder of the stairs just to ensure I enclosed that piece of jewelry safely within my own hand.

I had previously said that my inability to breathe properly while running had been embarrassing, but I will have to take that back in order to replace that with the sound of people reacting to my fall. I hadn't even realized that many people had been hanging around outside, but the crowd became apparent when I was able to process the 'ooh's and murmured 'oh my god's that sounded after the sound of my own tumbling finally ended.